After the successful capture of 29°S 64°W we went to “The 49”, a town that growth around the old station of the odd and abandoned railway used in the commercial operation of the Ambargasta saltpeter bed.

From here, we followed aside the abandoned railway, previously stopping for lunch.

Our next goal was to pass across the Ambargasta saltpeter bed, a real mystery because we didn’t know anything about its hydrologic situation. Google Earth showed us a direct path across it, at km 88 of the old railway. There we went.

This branch-line of the “Seghezzo” railway (Name of the company that operated the Saltpeter bed) was built with metallic sleepers, an odd selection for salted soils. Curiously it hadn’t been dismantled but the oxide has made its job and the vegetation was devouring it. It looks like “The Earth without Humans”, a popular TV series.

At Km 88, the detour appeared but a gate with padlock stopped us. Our mood fell down a little: unique possibility was to go around the saltpeter bed by the south, driving a lot of kilometers without enough time. But we went ahead.

Then, a crazy trip began, around the saltpeter bed and aside the Ambargasta mountains by paths where the Rally Dakar passed some days before. After almost 100 kilometers, we returned to the asphalt near the town of Mansilla. There we took towards north, passing by Rodeo city at Catamarca province, where we refilled gasoline and saw the clocks and the dust time in the GPS.

We continued quickly to the north, entering again in Santiago del Estero province, looking for some paths showed in our GPS. Finally, the path to Pump Station #6 REFINOR (ex YPF) appeared and luckily the gate didn’t have padlock. There were no recent footprints on the path.

The distance to the confluence began to reduce its value very fast and when we were sure to have enough time, another gate, now with many padlocks, complicated our intention. We were at 3.5 km of the goal but with the dusk very near.

Unique possibility was to walk and to walk fast enough to arrive with some sunlight for the pictures and to see where we must enter in the forest.

The general enthusiasm involved us together in the walk and all of us decided to go for success. Round trip will be about 8 km in addition to the 7 km walked in the previous capture. But the confluence hunters are so, with a special idiosyncrasy.

At once, a pump station appeared, unquestionably abandoned as “Earth without Humans” style and we entered in the gas/oil pipeline terrain at 2.5 km of the confluence. Quickly we walked to parallel 29 to south. The forest aside the pipeline looked very close and difficult to walk into. It was even worse without sunlight, but we went ahead.

At 500 meters of our point we found a fence and a magic firewall along it that allowed us to continue the approach. Practically without light except lanterns, we advanced a little for the firewall and at 130 meters the closed and dark forest was interposed.

We set the common sense as “blocked” and we went ahead into the forest in order to reach at least the “magic” circle of 100 meters. 30 meters looked like a little but really it was almost impossible. At first, we attempted to penetrate trough “holes” in the forest but they didn’t exist. Another option was to push as a scrum of rugby.

When I say “common sense blocked” I mean that it was crazy to enter dispersed into the dark forest without knowing what we could find and without a clear way to communicate among us. Snakes, spiders, a knock, a faint, whatever could have been a serious problem, but the adrenaline was stronger and all reached the goal. In my case I was at 40 metes of the confluence, as the pictures of the GPS shows.

Pictures aren’t very good because the darkness hindered them.

In the celebration, we took the picture of these successful team immersed en the darkness and silence of the forest. We were very happy about the four consecutive captures.

We returned to the cars at 22:00 on Sunday. All had to work Monday morning at Rosario and Buenos Aires, at 700 and 1000 km respectively from here.

A typical and crazy trip of confluence hunters had finished.

If you are interested in this type of trips, you can visit LO DEL PAMPA